


In A Chain Reaction

by ShowMeAHero



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), Marvel
Genre: Angst, Burns, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 01:39:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5271731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was bound to happen. This was bound to happen, and Matt knew it was bound to happen. Neither of them was careful enough; if it wasn’t Matt getting them involved in a dangerous case, it was Daredevil crossing a line that got Foggy into a risky situation. Matt was always going to be the reason Foggy got hurt. It was just a matter of time, and now their time was up, and Foggy was gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In A Chain Reaction

**Author's Note:**

> This has been something I just never finished, but, ta-da.
> 
> Title taken from ["Disco Inferno" by The Trammps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M), because I'm hilarious, and also the working title for this was, simply, "disco inferno".

Matt knew something was wrong as soon as he returned to his apartment building. Normally, he could hear Foggy’s heartbeat a block away, at least; he could catch no trace of it now. He dropped down from the roof to the ledge of the bedroom window, easing it open and slipping inside. He was reaching up to tug off his cowl when he smelled the faint scent of blood, lingering in the air like dust particles, and instantly went on alert. His hand fell away from his head and he pressed up against the wall, listening for heartbeats in their apartment.

Hearing nothing, Matt crept further into the apartment. He slid open the sliding door slowly, carefully, before edging around it into the main room. Once he was confident there was nobody in the apartment, he started to feel around for his furniture. The armchairs were knocked over, the table in splinters. He felt along the tipped-over couch edge to the broken kitchen table. He turned his head at the faint sound of a creak before realizing the front door was still open, the draft pushing it slightly on its broken hinges.

“Shit,” Matt cursed before heading for the bedroom again. The scent of blood lingered faintly in the whole apartment, like someone had been attacked and then the place had been half-heartedly cleaned. It must be Foggy’s blood. Matt’s blood started boiling, his heart pounding in his chest. He fought back the trembling of his hands and the bile in his throat and stormed out the front door, slamming it shut behind him and tracing the faint scent of blood down the stairs. The scent was almost too faint to follow outside the front door of the building; people still walked by late at night, and the city had too many scents to just hold onto one.

The smell of blood completely vanished by the time Matt reached the road. He assumed a van had taken Foggy from there, and crouched down, trying to take note of burnt rubber, oil, gas, any distinct scent, but there were too many mingled smells for him to trace any one. He sprinted back into the alley, swinging up onto the fire escape and climbing until he got to the roof. He took off at a dangerous run, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, his entire body tensed and searching for Foggy’s familiar heartbeat.

This was bound to happen. This was bound to happen, and Matt _knew_ it was bound to happen. Neither of them was careful enough; if it wasn’t Matt getting them involved in a dangerous case, it was Daredevil crossing a line that got Foggy into a risky situation. Matt was _always_ going to be the reason Foggy got hurt. It was just a matter of time, and now their time was up, and Foggy was _gone_.

Matt swallowed hard and caught the edge of a building, shoving his legs up over the side and taking off at a run again. He skid to a sudden stop in the middle of the unfamiliar roof, cocking his head to the side. He caught the faintest trace of a familiar heartbeat, took a second to make certain that it was Foggy’s, not Karen’s or Claire’s or anyone else’s (if there was anyone else to hear), then made a sharp turn on his heel and booked it in that direction. Foggy’s heartbeat spiked, and Matt leapt from the rooftop down to the street below.

He caught the tail end of another familiar heartbeat, significantly less familiar but still one that he had heard before. The closer he got, the better he could hear, and voices started filtering in. The salt smell of the docks was strong, almost stronger than Foggy’s blood, but not strong enough that Matt didn’t know he was going in the right direction. Foggy wasn’t speaking, but the strongest voice was beginning to become clear.

“The connection wasn’t very hard, Nelson,” the voice said, and Matt pinpointed it in a second; the assassin, Lester something, the same one who tried to kill Matt and Daredevil both, and failed both times. If Matt recalled correctly, he had called himself _Bullseye_ the last time the two of them had met. He wanted to kill Matt because he was hired to do so; he wanted to kill Daredevil because he was pissed that a bunch of his extortion plans got shut down by him a couple months back. Matt forced his legs to run faster, his lungs to breathe deeper, trying to get to Foggy. He knew Bullseye well enough to know that nothing good could possibly come of this, only destruction from the assassin who had lost his mind.

“I’ve met Daredevil, and I’ve met Matt Murdock, and I know that both of them are the same guy,” Bullseye continued. “You know it’s the same guy. He knows that I know it’s the same guy.” Foggy’s heartbeat spiked again, but Bullseye’s stayed eerily calm. Matt pushed himself harder. “From there, do you know how easy it was to connect the dots from Daredevil to Murdock to Nelson?” A brief pause, another spike in Foggy’s heartbeat, and Matt was getting close enough to smell singed flesh. “A straight line, Nelson.”

“Fuck you,” Foggy snarled, his voice thin but unwavering, and Matt’s footfalls starting to hit and echo through the wood planks of the docks. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“See, that’s the thing, Nelson.” The smell of burnt flesh got stronger, scorching metal and seared skin and hot blood smothering the salty ocean-and-fish smell of the docks. “I don’t need you to tell me a damn thing. I just need you to die.”

Matt took a second to knock out the lantern he could smell lighting the area Foggy’s heartbeat was coming from before he lashed out at Bullseye. He had the man pinned to the dock, a gloved hand wrapped around his throat, in what seemed to be less than a second. Bullseye laughed under him, his throat moving under Matt’s fingers, and Matt tightened his grip.

“I knew it,” Bullseye snapped, and Matt squeezed. Bullseye coughed. “Cut off Nelson and you cut off Murdock.”

“Matt.” Foggy’s voice was weaker than Matt had ever heard it, somewhere near his left. “Don’t kill him.”

“What did he do,” Matt stated more than asked. Foggy remained silent. “Foggy.”

“I branded him, _Daredevil_ ,” Bullseye spat up at him. Matt crushed his windpipe under his fingertips, wishing he had no gloves so he could feel nails and skin on skin. “I was hoping to kill him, but, details, really. Maybe this’ll be even _better_.”

Matt stopped, swallowed hard. He lifted his head slightly, then leaned forward, putting all of his weight on Bullseye’s throat. Foggy shifted off to his left, and Matt turned his head a little to the side, catching Foggy’s heat lifting a hand towards Matt. Matt lifted Bullseye’s head and slammed it into the dock, knocking him unconscious before he abandoned him to reach for Foggy.

“Hey, hey, it’s going to be okay, catch your breath,” Matt murmured, drawing Foggy’s head into the juncture of his neck and shoulder, running his hand through Foggy’s blood-matted hair. “Foggy, breathe for me. Can you do that for me?”

“Matt,” Foggy wheezed against Matt’s neck. Matt reached up and yanked his cowl back so it dangled against his back. Foggy’s hand scrabbled at the back of Matt’s head. “Matt.”

“What, what’s wrong, where are you hurt?” Matt asked. He ripped off his gloves with his teeth, then started to seek a head wound with his bare fingertips. He stopped once he found one, memorizing its exact location before moving down to Foggy’s throat. “I smelled something burning. Did he burn you?”

“Chest,” Foggy answered, and Matt’s hands carefully worked their way down his chest. Foggy inhaled sharply, and Matt found the edge of the burn. “Matt.”

“Shh, it’s going to be okay,” Matt assured him, fingers tracing the edges of the burn. He tried to force his heartbeat into slowing, if only because he knew Foggy could feel it in his neck. “He’s not going to hurt you anymore, okay? I promise.” He kept tracing the lines of the burn, feeling scorched flesh and blood under his fingertips. He followed the lines of the burn, trying to discern the size, the shape, the severity. He hesitated, fingers faltering. “Foggy.”

“Matt.”

“What-” Matt swallowed, hands tracing the straight, horrific lines of the burn again. “Foggy, what is this?”

“Burn, Matt.”

“Foggy. What is this.”

Foggy hesitated. Then, “Daredevil.”

Matt dropped his forehead against Foggy’s, tracing the large interlocked DD burned forever into Foggy’s chest. He made his breathing even out, made his hands stop shaking, made himself act like he was calm.

“It’s okay,” Foggy whispered against his neck. Matt reached up to thread his hands through Foggy’s hair with one hand as he fished his burner phone out of its holder on his uniform. “It’s okay.”

“I should be telling you that,” Matt offered weakly. Foggy’s hand clapped poorly on Matt’s cheek before Foggy twisted against him. “I’m calling Claire, okay? It’s going to be alright.”

“‘Kay,” Foggy agreed, already halfway to unconsciousness. Matt pulled him close, letting Foggy slump into his side, Matt’s mouth pressed to his temple. Foggy slipped into unconsciousness as Claire picked up the phone and Matt told her to meet him at his apartment. He called Brett next and left an anonymous tip in a disguised voice about the man who called himself Bullseye being seen near the docks. After tying Bullseye to a post along the edge of the docks, barely refraining back from dragging the man into the water and holding him under until his heartbeat stopped, Matt dragged Foggy to his feet, gathered him up, and took off for their apartment.

* * *

Foggy woke up out of his hazy sleep an indeterminate amount of time later. He did not remember himself at first, turning his head to the side and wincing as the movement caused a shot of pain to rocket from his chest up to his head. He exhaled sharply and made to sit up, but a pair of familiar hands on his shoulders pushed him back down. Foggy tilted his head back to look up at Matt standing above him.

“What happened?” Foggy asked. Matt slid an arm under Foggy’s back and helped him, slowly, into a sitting position, propped up against a bunch of Matt’s pillows leaning against the headboard. Matt sat on the edge of the bed, his head turned down, away from Foggy, hiding his expression. “Matt?”

The memories hit Foggy before Matt could answer, and Foggy abruptly felt as though he was miles away, crouched on a dock. Matt’s hands touched Foggy’s face, and Foggy jerked back. He tried to focus on the scene in front of him, on reality, on Matt’s fingers running through his hair, but only half of him was there, the other half far away. A sharp sting on his cheek brought him back to reality, and he looked up to see Claire standing over him.

“Thanks,” Foggy croaked, hand rubbing at his face. He looked down at his chest, the white gauze wrapped around him and under his arms like a mummy. He looked at Matt, who was doing the intense not-staring he tended to do when he wished he could see something, then at Claire, who held an ice pack in her hands and did not fidget. “How bad is it?”

“It’ll scar,” Claire said, finally settling a hand on his shoulder and gently guiding him back against the pillows. She placed the ice pack carefully over his heart, and he flinched at the cold against the pain. “I know, it hurts, I’m sorry. This’ll help.”

“You shouldn’t’ve been there,” Matt said, voice low, as he fell back onto the bed. He dropped his head into his hands and pulled at his hair. Claire pat Foggy’s cheek before leaving them alone.

“Matt, it’s not your fault,” Foggy said, and Matt’s head snapped up, face red, unfocused eyes blazing, mouth set in a hard line.

“‘Not my fault?’” Matt repeated, voice edging into furious. “Of _course_ it’s my fucking fault! You have- Foggy, _my_ symbol is _burnt_ onto you. How the fuck would this not be my fault?”

“You didn’t-”

“But I _did_ ,” Matt interrupted, and Foggy rubbed at his face with both hands. “If you didn’t know me- _Fuck,_ you’d be fine, you’d be safe somewhere, I don’t know what the _hell_ I was thinking, letting you-”

“Whoah, back up,” Foggy said, cutting Matt off, and Matt’s lips smashed back together tightly as he frowned at him. “First of all, you don’t ‘let’ me do anything. I can take care of myself.”

“You shouldn’t have-”

“ _Second_ of all,” Foggy continued pointedly, “if I didn’t know you, who knows where I’d be, so don’t pull that shit. You’ve been in my life for too long for me to even care what life would’ve been like without you.”

“But-”

“Matt, I love you, but shut up,” Foggy warned. “It’s not your fault. Are you listening to me? Matt.” Foggy reached out, ignoring the bullets of pain in his chest in favor of grabbing Matt’s chin. “Do you hear my heart beating right now?”

Matt nodded, face starting to crumple in on itself. Foggy squeezed his jaw.

“That’s because of you,” Foggy said. “I’d be dead if you hadn’t saved me.”

Matt’s jaw clenched under Foggy’s hand. “You wouldn’t have been there if it wasn’t for me in the first place.”

“At the risk of sounding dramatic, Matt, I would rather have a thousand burns than stop being near you,” Foggy said, and Matt threw himself forward like he had been holding back that entire time, grabbing Foggy’s head between his hands and kissing him with a ferocity not unknown to Foggy by this point in their relationship. He pressed Foggy up against the headboard and the pillows and kissed him until Foggy couldn’t breathe, his hips rolling up into Foggy’s instinctually, Foggy grappling for something to hold onto. He settled for fistfuls of Matt’s shirt, and Matt sighed into his mouth.

“I can’t lose you,” Matt murmured against his lips, and Foggy nodded.

“And I can’t lose you,” Foggy said, “so I guess we’ll both have to stay.”

Matt shut his eyes, pressing his forehead into Foggy’s and catching his breath. After a moment of feeling each other’s presence, knowing they were solid, knowing they were breathing, alive, _there_ , Matt pulled back and reached over the side of the bed.

“Claire left,” Matt informed him, heaving up a colossal white first aid kit that Foggy recognized from his own bathroom. The heavy-duty one he had purchased after finding out Matt’s secret. “Just heard the door shut. She asked me to change the bandages when you woke up, though.”

Matt started to unwind the bandages around Foggy’s chest. When he got to the gauze underneath, his hands trembled, the faintest trace of shake in his fingertips as he pulled the large square back, careful not to rip at Foggy’s skin with the tape. Foggy sucked in a sharp breath when he looked down at it.

“That’s not pretty,” Foggy commented, fingertips hovering just over the edge of the first _D_. “That’s definitely going to leave a mark.”

“I’m so sorry, Foggy,” Matt said softly, voice cracking a little in the middle, breaking on his tongue. Foggy stayed still as Matt dropped the gauze and bandages into his lap and reached out tentatively. When his touch found the burn, Foggy flinched, and Matt’s hand jerked back.

“It’s okay,” Foggy repeated, and would probably keep repeating for a long while. “It’s okay.” He waited until Matt evened his breathing again before tapping at the first aid kit. “I would love some painkillers, if there’s any left.”

Matt huffed a small laugh and popped open the kit. He started back to work on dressing and bandaging Foggy again while Foggy tried not to make any sounds that would show how much it hurt. Judging by Matt’s face, his heartbeat was giving him away regardless. He glanced out the window.

“It’s kind of… well, not _nice_ , but… it’s okay, in a way,” Foggy said, eventually. Matt frowned, his brow creasing, a little dip forming between his eyebrows as they pulled together. “Always have you with me.”

“You always had me before,” Matt murmured, smoothing on another piece of tape over the gauze pad.

“Forever,” Foggy said. “Just like you were. But now it’s on the outside.”

“Daredevil,” Matt said softly, still smoothing the same piece of tape methodically, over and over. Foggy caught his wrist, and Matt’s head fell, chin nearly pressed to his chest. “You were never-”

“Please,” Foggy interrupted, and Matt’s head tilted to the side, gaze somewhere near Foggy’s mouth, unseeing. “I don’t want to think about it. I just want to pretend it’s okay.”

Matt hesitated, then nodded. “Forever,” he echoed, then moved to wrap new bandages around Foggy’s chest. Foggy dug the painkillers out of the first aid kit and popped them in his mouth, dry-swallowing them with a wink in Matt’s direction. Matt did not see it, but he must have guessed, because he laughed. Probably heard Foggy’s eyelashes moving or some other nonsense. Foggy leaned back against the pillows and sighed.

“Glad to be home,” Foggy said, and Matt curled up against him, warm and aching for closeness. His hand hovered over Foggy’s wound and his heart for a moment before settling, gently, his touch barely there, feather-light, like he might hurt Foggy just by thinking his name too hard. Matt buried his face in Foggy’s neck.

“Mhm,” Matt agreed, and Foggy stroked Matt’s upper arm slowly, until Matt finally relaxed against him. The wound would scar, leaving an interlocked DD that Foggy carried for the rest of his life. He grew to like it enough, given that he had no choice in the matter, but might have gotten a tattoo anyways. Matt still had a lot of trepidation on his face when he touched it, a lot of fear, a lot of rage. The raised scars, pink and white and always a little raw-looking, reminded them both to survive.

**Author's Note:**

> Bullseye is a bad guy from the comics, for those of you who have only watched the show (and that's totally fine if you have).
> 
> The prompt (that I am 99% sure I gave myself) for this fic was: "a fic where Foggy gets kidnapped because he works with Daredevil and he gets tortured and he gets a brand like Daredevil’s interlocked DD burned onto his back, maybe on his chest, over his heart. So, like, broken beaten bloody Foggy and furious heartbroken Matt."
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
